Device for isolating textile coils

ABSTRACT

Device for isolating textile coils delivered from a coil supply by a transporting device having entrainers mutually spaced thereon, adjacent pairs of the entrainers forming respective troughs for receiving a textile coil therein for transport by the transporting device, includes, at a location at which a textile coil is initially received in a respective trough opening, a pair of guide runners spaced from one another on opposite sides of the trough for supporting the tip and the foot, respectively, of a textile coil received in the trough through the opening thereof, the pair of guide runners having means for determining the position of the central longitudinal axis of the respective textile coil with respect to an outwardly extending edge of the entrainer of the respective trough by which the respective textile coil is entrainable.

United States Patent [191 Anderheggen et al.

[ DEVICE FOR ISOLATING TEXTILE COILS [75] Inventors: Manfred Anderheggen; Heinz Biihren, both of Miinchengladbach, Germany I [73] Assignee: W. Schlafhorst & C0.,

Monchengladbach, Germany [22} Filed: May 25, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 146,740

[52] US. Cl. 221/253, 198/53 [58] Field of Search 221/218, 253;

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,753,058 7/1956 Potthoff 221/253 X [451 July 17,1973

Primary Examiner-Robert B. Reeves Assistant Examiner-Thomas E. Kocovsky Attorney-Curt M. Avery, Arthur E. Wilfond, Herbert L. Lerner and Daniel J. Tick [57] ABSTRACT Device for isolating textile coils delivered from a coil supply by a transporting device having entrainers mutually spaced thereon, adjacent pairs of the entrainers forming respective troughs for receiving a textile coil therein for transport by the transporting device, includes, at a location at which a textile coil is initially received in a respective trough opening, a pair of guide runners spaced from one another on opposite sides of the trough for supporting the tip and the foot, respectively, of a textile coil received in the trough through the opening thereof, the pair of guide runners having means for determining the position of the central longitudinal axis of the respective textile coil with respect to an outwardly extending edge of the entrainer of the respective trough by which the respective textile coil is entrainable.

2 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures DEVICE FOR ISOLATING TEXTILE COILS This invention relates to device for isolating textile coils, and especially, textile coils that are delivered by a transporting device having entrainers forming troughs for receiving the textile coils therein.

When further automatically processing very large amounts of textile coils, such as spinning cops, for example, it is necessary to deliver the coils individually to the processing or rewinding stations.

It has been known heretofore to employ transporting devices that are coordinated with coil supply receptacles. The transporting devices can consist of conveyor belts that are provided with entrainers which, together with the belt of the conveyor, form receiving troughs for the coils or cops, the width of the trough opening being determined by the spacing between the entrainers, and the depth of the troughs being determined by the height of the entrainers extending from the belt. Such devices operate without disturbance only, however, when all the coils that are being isolated have the same diameter, and the width of the trough openings does not greatly exceed that diameter. The condition that textile coils of the same diameter be produced in very large quantities can not always be fulfilled. Thus, for example, in the processing of spinning cops, the delivery and isolation of coils or cops with diameters deviating from those of matching coils or cops as well as incompletely wound so-called remainder or crippled coils cannot be avoided.

Reliable isolation of such textile coils with the heretofore known transporting devices is impossible because the trough opening would always be too large for such varying diameter conditions and therefore, when a crippled or partly wound coil or cop is received in one of the troughs, a second such coil or even a second fully-wound coil of smaller diameter could be entrained therewith and received in the same trough of the known transporting device. Moreover, it is possible that an additional coil may intrude between a wall of the trough and a coil already received in the'trough and may force the latter coil out of the trough without remaining therein itself. The result thereof is that individual troughs would remain completely empty.

A further increase in the size of the trough opening of the heretofore known transporting devices would result in the fact that the coils or cops in most cases would no longer become isolated but rather, depending upon the amount of diameter deviation, would be transported onward several together in at least some of the troughs. A decrease in the size of the troughs opening had to take into account, however, the largest possible coil diameter within the set of coils that are to be processed and could not avoid the shortcoming men tioned initially hereinabove. Each variation in the width of the trough opening by replacement or adjustment operations would moreover be troublesome and time-consuming.

It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide device for isolating textile coils which avoids the foregoing disadvantages of the heretofore known devices of this general type. It is a further and more specific object of the invention to provide such device which isolates reliably and without difficulty textile coils having a very large range of varying diameters without regard as to whether they are fully or partly wound.

With the foregoing and other objects in view, there is provided, in accordance with the invention, device for isolating textile coils delivered from a coil supply by a transporting device having entrainers mutually spaced thereon, adjacent pairs of the entrainers form ing respective troughs for receiving a textile coil therein for transport by the transporting device, comprising, at a location at which a textile coil is initially received in a respective trough opening, a pair of guide runners spaced from one another on opposite sides of the trough for supporting the tip and the foot, respectively, of a textile coil received in the trough through the opneing thereof, the pair of guide runners having means for determining the position of the central longitudinal axis of the respective textile coil with respect to an outwardly extending edge of the entrainer of the respective trough by which the respective textile coil is entrainable.

In accordance with other features of the invention, the guide runners are formed with a respective support contour whereon the tip and foot, respectively, of a textile coil are supportable and a respective abutment contour against which the coil tip and foot, respectively, are abuttable.

Other features which are considred as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.

Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in device for isolating textile coils, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.

The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic side elevational view, partly in section of the device for isolating textile coils constructed in accordance with the invention; and

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view of a detail of the device of FIG. 1.

Referring now to the drawing and first, particularly to FIG. 1 thereof, there is shown, in front of a side wall 1, a transporting device 3, which is formed of an upwardly inclined conveyor belt 4, along the length of which, mutually spaced entrainers 5 are secured. The entrainers 5, in the illustrated embodiment, constitute plate-like'partitions fastened by any suitable means at one edge thereof to the belt proper of the conveyor belt 4, and having a free edge 24 extending outwardly from the belt. The conveyor belt 4 is guided around mutually spaced deflecting or reversing rollers '6 and 7 which are rotatably mounted on the side walls 1 and 2 (FIG. 2). For reasons of clarity, only the side wall I is shown in FIG. 1. The conveyor belt 4 is continually driven in the direction indicated by the arrow 8 by non-illustrated though well-known means, such as a suitable electric motor, for example. The spacing between the respective adjacent entrainers 5 determines the width of the openings 9 of troughs which are formed by respective pairs of adjacent entrainers 5 and the portion of the belt proper located between the entrainers of each pair. The spacing of the free edges 24 of the entrainers 5 to the belt proper of the conveyor 4 detennines the depth of the troughs. The dimensions of the troughs can be selected so that textile coils 10 or cops having a relatively wide range of diameters may be reliably accommodated in one and the same transporting device 3.

As is furthermore apparent from FIG. 1, the textile coils 10 travel from a supply container 11 through a channel 12 and onto a slide or chute 13. In order to prevent the textile coils 10 from rolling over one another on the slide 13, a down-holding member 14, in the form of an angle iron, for example, is secured above the slide 13 at a suitable spacing therefrom. In case the slide 13 becomes blocked or jammed due to the fact that one or more textile coils assume an inclined position thereon, the down-holding member 14 is provided with a flap 26 which is tumable counterclockwise. At the right-hand end of the slide 13, as shown in FIG. 1, the core ends, i.e. the tips and feet, of the textile coils l slide onto support contours l9 and 20 (FIG. 2) of a pair of guide runners l7 and 18 which are located on opposite sides of the conveyor belt 4. The guide runners l7 and 18 are furthermore provided, at the respective ends thereof closer to the conveyor belt 4, with abutment contours 21 and 22, respectively, extending perpendicularly to the support contours l9 and 20. By means of both the support contours l9 and 20 and the abutment contours 21 and 22 of the guide runners l7 and 18, the position of the central longitudinal axis 23 of a respective textile coil received in a trough is accurately determined or fixed both so as to be parallel to the trough opening 9 as well as to have an invariable and constant spacing 27 from the outwardly extending or forward edge 24 of the respective entrainer 5 by which the textile coil is entrainable. In FIG. 2, there is shown how the guide runners l7 and 18 are secured to the sidewalls l and 2. Furthermore, as can be clearly seen in FIG. 2, the central longitudinal axis 23 of any textile coil received in the respective trough, even when the textile coil is partly unwound, as shown, will maintain its parallel position with respect to the outwardly extending edges 24 of the entrainers 5.

The primary advantage of the device for isolating textile coils according to the invention is that the receipt and accommodation of the textile coils in the troughs of a transporting device is no longer dependent upon undetermined outer diameters of the individual coils. By means of the invention of the instant application, positioning of the coil axis paralled to the width of the trough opening is determined by suitably guiding both ends of the coil core which extend from the coil, the accuracy of the diameters of the coil cores thereby ensuring that the central longitudinal axis of the cores as well as of the textile coils or cops will always be in the same position. It is accordingly immaterial whether the coil cores are of the cylindrical or the frequently encountered conical types, since even when using conical coil cores, orientation of the central longitudinal axis of the cores with respect to the trough opening will be effected with adequate reliability because the difference between the smallest and the largest diameter of the conical cores will always be significantly smaller than the difference between the smallest core diameter and the diameter of the yarn winding on a partly wound or remainder coil, for example. Each textile coil, whether fully or partly wound, is thus always fed to the trough opening so that even for liberally dimensioned trough opening widths, no possibility will arise for entraining a second textile coil.

Due to the presence on the guide runners of abutment contours for both ends of the coil cores, especially when withdrawing the coils by means of a conveyor belt traveling in vertical direction, the parallel orientation of the central longitudinal axis of the textile coil with respect to the base of the respective troughs or to the outwardly extending edge of the respective entrainers as well as the spacing of that axis from the trough base or the outwardly extending entrainer edge are accurately and exactly determined, and thereby a constant or invariable point of contact is always afforded for the transporting device to take up the textile cores reliably with aid of the entrainers.

We claim:

1. A device for transporting fully and partly wound textile coils having varying diameters, each of said textile coils having a core having a tip and a foot on the longitudinal ends thereof free of wound textile material, comprising a conveyor means on which a plurality of entrainers each having a projecting edge portion are mounted on a conveyor belt to define a plurality of troughs for receiving textile coils and transporting the latter, a pair of guide runners spaced from one another a distance greater than the longitudinal length of said troughs, but less than the longitudinal distance between the tip and foot of a textile coil, said guide runners sup porting the tip and foot of each textile coil, said guide runners extending to either side of said troughs such that the latter pass between said guide runners, said guide runners having abutment means disposed on the sides of said troughs for engaging said tip and foot of a textile coil to repeatedly position atextile coil in the same pick-up position regardless of whether the textile coil is fully or partly wound, said abutment means having an abutment surface displaced from the surfaces of said conveyor belt and said entrainers such that the pick-up position in which said textile coils are repeatedly placed is located ata fixed distance from said projecting edge of said entrainers, whereby said troughs on said conveyor means are operable to pick up successive textile coils delivered to said fixed pick-up position independently of the wound condition or diameter of said textile coils.

' 2. A device according to claim I, wherein said abutmcnt surface extends generally perpendicularly to said support rails to define said pick-up position at a location spaced from said conveyor belt.

a 4: a: s a

ntcnt No. 3,746,21

Dated July 17 973 Or 3 MANFRED ANDERHEGGEN and HEINZ BGHREN s in the ebove-identified patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

In the heading to the printed specification, there shouid be included --Foreign Application Priority Data May 30, 1970 Germany. .P 20 26 5 u .2-

Signed and sealed this 1st day of Januar wu (SEAL) Attest:

EDWARD M.FLETCI ER,JR. RENE D. TEGTMEER Attesting Officer Acting Commissioner of Patents 

1. A device for transporting fully and partly wound textile coils having varying diameters, each of said textile coils having a core having a tip and a foot on the longitudinal ends thereof free of wound textile material, comprising a conveyor means on which a plurality of entrainers each having a projecting edge portion are mounted on a conveyor belt to define a plurality of troughs for receiving textile coils and transporting the latter, a pair of guide runners spaced from one another a distance greater than the longitudinal length of said troughs, but less than the longitudinal distance between the tip and foot of a textile coil, said guide runners supporting the tip and foot of each textile coil, said guide runners extending to either side of said troughs such that the latter pass between said guide runners, said guide runners having abutment means disposed on the sides of said troughs for engaging said tip and foot of a textile coil to repeatedly position a textile coil in the same pick-up position regardless of whether the textile coil is fully or partly wound, said abutment means having an abutment surface displaced from the surfaces of said conveyor belt and said entrainers such that the pick-up position in which said textile coils are repeatedly placed is located at a fixed distance from said projecting edge of said entrainers, whereby said troughs on said conveyor means are operable to pick up successive textile coils delivered to said fixed pick-up position independently of the wound condition or diameter of said textile coils.
 2. A device according to claim 1, wherein said abutment surface extends generally perpendicularly to said support rails to define said pick-up position at a location spaced from said conveyor belt. 